Shopping for baby chicks, baby goats and other springtime shenanigans

Nothing screams "SPRING" more than baby chicks, baby goats and crocuses.  And this blog post is filled with 'em, because guess what?  Spring has sprung, more or less.  More last week, less this week, with the snow line falling again.

I accidentally came home with six new baby chicks after entering our local farm store.  They were 50 percent off, so how could I have resisted?  The chicks live in our bathroom for now, with a heat lamp and a brooder that keeps them safe.

Our dogs, especially Raka, the big one, love these little fluff balls.  Raka lies on the floor with them, letting them flutter all over her and even lets them peck her nose.  It's incredibly cute, albeit a tiny little bit exciting, because Raka could fit all six chicks easily into her mouth at once.

If you want to raise chicks and know how to build a chicken tractor to keep them safe, you can take my online chicken raising course for 10 percent off with coupon code "chicks", but only until Sunday at 10pm Pacific. Click here to check it out.

Also: baby goats.  Ahhhhhhhh, baby goats.  Last fall, I sold all of my goats to have a breather and figure out what I want to do with my life, but very soon I realized that this life needs to have goats in it.  And cheesemaking. 

So I've been spending time with friends' goats to see which ones I want.  The problem is: I want them all.

Below are mini Nubians with their adorable long ears, which I'm drooling over because I've bred and raised ear-less La Mancha goats for over a decade.

And then there's the white Saanens with their bunny rabbit ears.  

Choices, choices.  What's a girl to do when one baby goat looks cuter than the other?

This whole spring thing happened pretty quickly.  One week, we were covered in snow and ice, and the other, things were melted.

The worst part was when I had to shovel snow and ice to clear a path for the chicken tractor.  The poor girls had been stuck in one area for weeks, blocked in by snow, until I finally had enough and freed them.

Good exercise, y'all.  And happy chickens pecking at grass.  It was worth it.

As soon as the snow was gone, I jogged out to the garden (in a T-shirt and barefoot) so I could plan it out for this year's planting.  I practice crop rotation to keep things healthy, and I keep a stained, tattered garden journal that's 15 years old.  It documents every single year of gardening we've done on this piece of land.  It's epic.  And dirty.

So there I was, squatting in the garden, and although I had only planned on laying out garden beds, my arms and legs started twitching, and before I knew it, I had filled the wheelbarrow with compost from the goat barn, spread it on a garden bed, broadforked it to make it nice and loose, and planted all the garlic.

I love when that  happens.  Garlic's in.  Check.

I shall leave you with images of last week.

... Sun shining onto the Cascade River...

... Sun rising in our back yard...

... My sons heading into the woods with their friend to target practice with their bows and arrows...

... My husband sniffing Devil's club inner bark he harvested to make a tincture with...

... Is your garden snow free yet? 

Baby chicks, and kayaking (not with the baby chicks, though)

My boys are picking up chicks.  

Who could blame them?  They're cute!

Picking up the human kinds of chicks will happen soon enough, but for now, I'm referring to the feathered kinds.  I am so happy that my kids are so excited about these baby chickens.  We have waited for 21 days, while the eggs slowly grew life inside of them in the incubator in our bathroom.  After all the waiting, pipping (the start of a hole) is an exciting sight:

Watching chicks hatch from an egg is a trip.  It's such hard work for these poor little, wet, dinosaur-looking creatures, that when they finally break out of the shell, they often just pass out for a minute.  With their mohawks sticking straight up, they rest their tiny little head on the shell of a not-yet-hatched sibling.  And then they start up again, frantically trying to sort out how their legs work.

It takes them a while to dry out, but when they do - oh my! Cuter fluff balls don't exist in the animal kingdom. 

My children agree.  In fact, little Eva has taken on the role of mothering the tiny chicks, carefully holding them in her hands, offering them bits of food.  The chicks already follow her around, or fall asleep in her warm hands.

Other exciting news: Steve and I attended the Skagit Land Trust Fundraiser and Auction a few nights ago, and we bid on a inflatable Kayak that's worth $900.  We won with a bid of $300, so we are pleased as can be.  We took it out for a test float with our friends the other morning.  There are not many prettier lakes than Diablo Lake, and although we got rained on, we all had fun.

I foresee many adventures in this Kayak!  It's super easy to set up and take down, and it's light, and sturdy, and perfect in every way.  Yes, I'm in love.

Let me leave you with images from a walk to our  neighborhood creek, and lastly, Luke playing his guitar in the yard, with a stage to match. Ahem.